The ANC’s spokesman, Jackson Mthembu, has released a statement in which South Africa’s ruling party “strongly condemns” what it describes as an “unfortunate outburst” directed by Julius Malema at a BBC journalist in a press conference yesterday.

This is possibly the strongest pubic reprimand addressed by the party to the volatile president of its youth wing. The ANC has been notoriously reluctant to rein in Malema who has generated endless column inches for his legendary wild statements which have included demanding the elimination of the opposition DA and claiming he would kill for Jacob Zuma.

The party called Malema’s behaviour “aggressive and insulting” and said it was “not in keeping with the culture and traditions as well as conduct of a cadre and leader of the ANC”. It also admitted that Malema’s tirade “reflected negatively on the ANC YL, the entire ANC family, our Alliance partners as well as South Africa in the eyes of the international community”.

The ANC’s statement also tackles Malema’s brazen support for Zanu PF (the ANC’s partisanship is a little more veiled than the ardour apparent in its youth league’s frothy fulminations about Zanu PF). The statement says:

The ANC would also like to strongly disagree and distance itself from utterances by the ANC YL at their press conference yesterday that they will support President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF to win the forthcoming general elections in Zimbabwe. The ANC stance on the Zimbabwe issue is that we fully support the mediation process that is currently underway, which is led and facilitated by President Jacob Zuma. The ANC together with its government would like to see all political parties in Zimbabwe (the two MDC’s and Zanu PF) implementing the spirit and the letter of the Global Political Agreement. It is therefore our view that the ANC YL’s expression of support for one party in Zimbabwe goes against our country’s and President Zuma’s mediation efforts in that country.

Mthembu says an urgent meeting will be held with Malema to discuss his behaviour and his rabidly pro-Zanu PF stance.

It will be interesting to see whether the severe tone of the statement marks a shift in the way Malema is handled by the ANC. Will he be made to behave? Have the powers that be decided he is becoming too much of a liability — or threat?

And, if an attempt is made to make him behave, what will his reaction be? The footage of Malema’s outburst shows a man drunk on power — or perceived power. This, I believe, will be the cause of his eventual hubris. While his ascent within the ANC may seem unstoppable and impregnable, I believe this is far from the case. Malema’s anger yesterday marks his achilles heel. His response to the journalist’s remark shows he has a major insecurity problem and a deep yearning to be respected. What is also evident is that this insecurity is a catalyst for wild behaviour — wild behaviour that could one day cause his career implode. Hotheadedness and volatility in a politician is a major liability because they lead to actions that can alienate and cause resentment amongst competing factions and even in one’s own power base.

So whoever can successfully exploit this this weakness as well as his addiction to power, will be able to topple him. Malema’s position is far more vulnerable than we realise.

The BBC’s Jonah Fisher was booted out of an ANC Youth League press conference by the movement’s president, Julius Malema. Reporting back from his trip to Zimbabwe, Malema criticised the Zimbabwean opposition MDC for making statements from its “air-conditioned” Sandton offices in Johannesburg.

From further back in the room, Fisher pointed out that Malema also lived in Sandton. And so, a torrent of abuse was unleashed in which Malema called security, labelled the journalist a “bastard” and “bloody agent” and accused him of displaying a “white tendency”.

ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu has defended Julius Malema’s lusty renditions of the infamous “kill the boers, they are rapists” song, arguing (according to this Sapa article) that the “the lyrics of the song had been quoted out of context”.

“This song was sung for many years even before Malema was born. Julius doesn’t even know who’s the writer of the song. He got it from us [the ANC]. You must blame the ANC, don’t blame Julius. But when you blame the ANC, then contextualise it,” Sapa quotes Mthembu as saying.

By Mthembu’s logic, it is completely acceptable inciting people to kill others, provided there is “context”. What does that mean? Well, so as long as “kill the blacks” was an old apartheid song, embittered racists can chant it from the rooftops. So long as “kill the women” was some sort of misogynist anthem, chauvinists can do the Macarena to it in male-only clubs. So long as “kill the gays” was a major hit for bigots as they set lesbians alight, they can scream it as they throw the gays off bridges and into manholes.

That’s the logic behind ANC’s defence of Julius Malema’s call to kill. But it is, most likely, an unintended logic. Because one gets the sense from Mthembu’s inelegant explanation behind Malema’s behaviour that singing “kill the boers” is acceptable simply because of the group it is targeting. In the ANC’s eyes, this, surely, is a way of putting a “vanquished” people in their place, reinforcing the ANC’s Africanist political hegemony, reminding white Afrikaners — yes, after all, that is what the word “boer” is a term for — that they are “guests” staying in this country at the almighty ANC’s behest, and that their livelihoods, and indeed lives, are at the mercy of the ANC.

The ANC equates the black majority with its own political majority. It equates the Afrikaans minority with a political minority, a minority that is supposedly stubborn, resistant to change and unwilling to accept the political majority’s power. This is a dangerous, unfortunate perspective because it negates the nuances of political thought and tramples on the concepts of individual freedom, liberty and expression. It forgoes any notion of equality and inclusiveness.

The Afrikaners are South Africans and Africans. They are equals and deserve to be treated as such. Provided our Constitution and laws are respected, they are as entitled to live in whichever way they want to, to say and do whatever they want — as any other South African, of any culture, race or creed, should be able to do.

By supporting Malema’s calls for the demise of the Afrikaners, as implied in “kill the boers”, the ANC shows contempt for this concept of equality and individual liberty — and for our Constitution which guarantees this. Why? Because the ANC believes that minorities (whether racial, political or intellectual) require subordination and domination. This impulse shares the very same roots as the heinous National Party’s urge to dominate and subordinate groupings it considered “other” and inferior. But that’s no surprise — whatever its claims to contrary, the ANC has shown again and again that it is cut of the same cloth as the National Party — like its predecessor in power it is racially nationalistic, adhering to the politics of domination and exclusion.

Malema’s recent pronouncements — and the ANC’s sprightly defence of them — are no exception.

The ANC Youth League’s spokesperson, Floyd Shivambu, attacked the “vampire” media for reporting about Julius Malema’s security arrangements and the R300 000 it is costing taxpayers every month in this statement. Shivambu believes that such matters are “confidential” and “are not supposed to be discussed in public”.

He then turned on the DA, which had released a statement on the matter. Shivambu had this to say:

Majority of DA supporters witnessed with appreciation when apartheid sponsored killings of thousands of our people for many years and know of the cowardly assassination of Chris Hani.

Malema also said the ANCYL would make it clear to the International Association of Athletics Federations that it should not “impose” its concept of “hermaphrodite” on South Africa.

Australian newspapers have reported that IAAF gender tests on Semenya suggested that she was a hermaphrodite.

“Hermaphrodite, what is that? Somebody tell me, what is hermaphrodite in Pedi? There’s no such thing, hermaphrodite, in Pedi. So don’t impose your hermaphrodite concepts on us.

“You are either a woman or a man. When a child is born you are announcing it’s a baby girl or a baby boy. We have never heard in the village a child being projected, ‘we are given a hermaphrodite’. There’s never been such a thing in a village we come from.

“Why should we be told today our children are hermaphrodites? She’s a girl and why should we accept concepts that are imposed on us by the imperialists? We will never agree to that concept. You are either a girl or a boy and that’s it.”

The battle between the ANC and its splinter continues, with senior Cope official and former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa’s estranged son given a Youth League bursary and made an ambassador for the ANCYL’s scholarship programme for “needy” individuals.

As usual, Malema attacked Cope, Helen Zille and the IFP. He also, according to the Times, gave some interesting reasons to be a part of the ANC:

The Youth League president told the students that “the good times” were over for those who had defected to form Cope.

“They will never feed their children. They will never eat at expensive restaurants again. The nice things are over for them. It is only nice in the ANC.

“Beautiful things are in the ANC. Ugly things are outside the ANC.

“Beautiful girls are found in the ANC. If you want to get married, you must choose to get married in the ANC,” he said.